The purpose of the Molecular Biology Core Facility is to provide the program investigators with the materials, instruments and expertise to carry out research that utilizes molecular biology techniques. The Core Director, Dr. Athena Andreadis will guide this service with the help of an experienced technician. All projects in the grant will use the facility. Dr. Jungalwala will collaborate with Dr. Andreadis to clone and sequence the genes for GlcNAc-transferase and SGGL-1 binding lectins. Dr. McCluer and Dr. Smith will use the facility for the studies on fucosyltransferase genes.Dr. McCaffery will use the facility to isolate and sequence the human gene that encodes the aldehyde dehydrogenase involved in the biosynthesis of retinoic acid. Dr. Andreadis plans to screen for clones and sequence genes interacting with the axonal specific tau transcript and protein. Generating this core facility is a time- efficient and cost-effective way to achieve the goals of the program.